CSUSM Hosts Women’s Hackathon Oct. 11

News Release by Cathy Baur

California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) will be taking part in the third International Women’s Hackathon which will be held on campus on October 11 from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

The International Women’s Hackathon is sponsored by Microsoft Research and seeks to encourage young women to pursue their interest and careers in computer science, even if they haven’t had prior programming experience. The event is open to female students over the age of 16. Participants will be broken into teams of four to six to design a website, game, cloud based service, application, or mobile app to address one of these two world challenges: Disaster Response or Climate Data. Winning teams will receive prizes and have a chance to have their application and pitch video published on the Microsoft Research website.

“A Hackathon exclusively for young women provides a safe environment for them to share their creativity, collaborate with each other, and build friendships,” said Dr. Youwen Ouyang, professor of Computer Science at CSUSM. “There are now 40 students registered, representing 14 colleges and high schools. The support from the community for the event has truly humbled me. We are so grateful to our volunteers, judges and mentors who are ready to work with participants for a fun day of tackling real world problems.”

CSUSM has received financial support for the Hackathon from the John Gormally Family and TakeLessons.com. The San Diego community can support CSUSM’s participation in the International Women’s Hackathon by being a mentor or by sponsoring the event.